Mitre saw setup

[boomer]

A long shot but is their anyone Stoke On Trent area that could set me my mitre saw up.
I can not for the love of saw dust get it to cut square , I just need someone in the know to either do it or say something major is wrong with it..
Its a Evolution rage 3s sliding 210mm
Thanks Iain

 

[JSW]

Got the same saw, I had a lot of trouble getting it to cut square and true. Which way is it *out*, 90 degrees to the fence?

 

[boomer]

Yeah it is mate its a nightmare

 

[JSW]

Ok, from memory as I don't have mine at home at the moment, there are two sets of allen key fixings either end of the back fence, slacken those off, drop the blade down while at the same time pulling the guard back (unplugged from mains obviously) and use a combination square or ideally a plastic rectangular square, engineers square etc to set the fence square to the blade, if that makes sense.

It will take a bit of fiddling with, and moving the blade away from 90 and back to, till it hits the positive stop, to figure out when it is actually square, but just takes a bit of perseverance.

HTH's

John.

 

[boomer]

Thanks will give that ago.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Where in Stoke are you? The Alsager end or the Blythe Bridge end?

 

[boomer]

Im Chell area so closer to Alsager.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Sorry, wrong answer
I'm going to visit my mum tomorrow, I could have called in, but Chell is miles away.
You'll sort it.

BTW, do you know about the 5-cut test? When you think you have it right, take a piece of MDF, the biggest you can crosscut and take a cut off one edge. Label it 1. Put edge 1 against the fence and make a second cut, square to it. Label this 2.

Repeat the turn-and-cut twice more so you have 4 sides, each labelled in turn.

Now put side 4 against the fence and cut side 1 again. The strip that comes off should be completely parallel along its length. If it is not, then the saw is still out by 1/4 of the taper.

Good luck.

 

[boomer]

Lol thanks Steve,Great tip i'll give it a go.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

I have one of these and no amount of setup made it cut accurately. I tried for weeks then lost patience. I eventually bought the entry level Bosch, which, slight blade deflection on the included blade aside, cuts true. I kept the Evolution for rough cutting and because it's handy for metal on the off chance I need it.

The problem I had on the Evolution, was that the retractable fence section, when tightened down, pushed the top half of the fence forward slightly, perhaps 1mm, enough to deflect the workpiece away from the fence on thicker stock. I'm not great at this stuff, but I couldn't see a workaround to what was essentially a design flaw.

As the included blade is TCT, make sure you avoid the tips when using your square. Sorry if that sounds obvious.

 

[boomer]

I only make garden products but could do with a more accurate cut but like you i will keep it for rough cutting.
even though i did avoid the tips it is good advice.

 

[Roughcut]

I've had an Evolution 10" sliding mitre saw for the past few years and must admit I've never had a problem with it.
However if there is no way to adjust your saw could it be worth making a sacrificial fence possibly using shims to create a fence that will be 90 degrees to the blade?
Yes you will lose a small amount of cross cutting capability (the thickness of the sacrificial fence).
But it should make the saw accurate and useable.
Maybe something similar to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjB1UpNqY2k

 

[YorkshireMartin]

I only make garden products but could do with a more accurate cut but like you i will keep it for rough cutting.
even though i did avoid the tips it is good advice.

I'm not saying the Evolution can't be made to cut perfectly square, I am not experienced enough to make such a statement. Your saw might also be different to mine, who knows. My reasoning for the change was for the price of the Evolution, could you really expect the accuracy needed for furniture. I figured not and felt I'd spent enough time fiddling with it already.

I hope the Bosch will do it's job. If I ever manage to complete my setup that is. At the moment, I'm all the gear and no idea. I've had so much equipment trouble that I'm yet to mill a piece of stock to practice on. So I'm not even a woodchip creator, well, not furniture wise at least.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Update on the Bosch. It is extremely accurate now I've got it set up correctly. See pic which was 10cm square stock so needed two passes with the stock reversed for the second cut. Can't fault it, except I wish I could afford the 12" glide version, sadly they don't do the 8" glide in the UK yet.

The 8" Bosch is very well priced at the moment at one of the big online book sellers.

 

[boomer]

YorkshireMartin thats looking very good.
After much looking around and advice im also going for Bosch
Bosch GCM 8 SJL 216mm

 

[banjerbill]

I also have the Rage 3 which I am not getting satisfactory results with. The comments on this thread have prompted me to order the Bosch, hope it lives up to expectations. =P~

Bill